I've always wanted to write, but coming from a small-town background - I was born and brought up in Ludhiana - you think you're not the kind of literary person who will write books that will sell. There was always a kind of defensiveness in me.

My understanding is that a book becomes a best seller only when it is pirated, sold on footpaths and at traffic lights.

I look at every book as a new learning opportunity.

While a lot of management development books try to teach you a lesson or give you a scenario of what corporate culture and work practices are about, they're theoretical and written in a sermonizing way. Most people don't get past the first chapter, and they just look nice on the bookshelf.

You're always thinking, What's the next move - the career, the money.

I absolutely believed when I was young because the Tooth Fairy was always good to me. The Tooth Fairy generally left me a dollar or two dollars and, as a kid, that was a lot of money.

When I started making money, I immediately began buying property and fixing it up. I was always searching for the next neighborhood. The first place I bought when I was 19. I found a huge loft on the Lower East Side, almost 3,500 square feet. I did it up, turned it over, and sold it.

When I was a child, I was very poor and wanted everything. So when I got money, I began buying things.